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Cars, trucks, busses could reduce total combustion by 90%


Description

Summary

An Alternative: The Internal Steam Engine©

The actual ‘perfect’ efficiency of an Internal Combustion Engine is approximately 6.5%, so a gallon of fuel that has 2776 horsepower only delivers 180 horsepower, instead of 185 miles to a gallon on a fuel like gasoline, the average car gets 12.5 miles to the gallon. Even if they mount this into a chassis with an electric motor and a pile of batteries, the efficiency perhaps doubles because the engine can be run at a single, most efficient RPM.

Fuel economy is NOT an indication of efficiency, because you can lower the demand by making the chassis lighter, but the efficiency stays the same.

What I propose is to heat the bores to a constant temperature greater than 400* degrees, and inject water into the bores creating steam pressure to drive the piston. This allows the heat to be on demand, so the fuel consumption is only from the heat used, with power developed from the stored thermal mass of the head and the metered quantity of water to make the power every time a piston is available for power, which would be would be every stroke.

In practice, water is injected into the heated bore(s) to produce steam. The steam pressure is dependent on the quantity of water introduced into the heated bores; (see steam tables). This would quadruple the number of power strokes and could triple the applied pressure bringing efficiencies into the 70th percentile.

This implies that a 4,500 pound vehicle could get 145 miles to the gallon and reduce combustion gases, (pollution) by 90%.

©case number: 1-89587058


What actions do you propose?

Beginning with a known short block, build a head that has the double acting pistons, valve as described and burner to heat the head.  Using available direct injection injectors from a gasoline engine and a reprogrammed Engine Control Module from a vehicle using these injectors.

Injectors are available that have the capacity to meter the injection of water at the minimum volume from .003 grams to 12.7 grams allowing the pressure applied to the pistons to be controlled from idle to full power as indicated by the a Steam Pressure table.

The burner is estimated to be capable of maintaining the head at 400 degrees using 150,000Btus of heat for a 5,000 pound vehicle.  The burner is simply regulated by thermostatic control and cycles proportionally to add heat as the volume of water is applied to provide the demanded power.

A mathematical model indicates that the average duty cycle of the burner would be approximately 4% of a 530 CFM maximum fuel/air flow at 150,000 Btu.

Acceleration is from the head, weighing approximately 70 pounds for a 2.5 liter block storing the heat to provide approximately 393hp of steam while the burner recovers the lost temperature after the acceleration cycle.

The burner output maximum Btu delivery is determined by the maximum speed and weight of the vehicle and changes as the demand changes...  The larger the vehicle the higher the Btu demand is.

Testing could be on a dynomometer, but to verify it's function and make it attractive to bidders, I would recommend a chassis to be selected and powered as final proof of function.

I would suggest selling the developed engine to the highest bidder. The concept in terms of it's Intellectual Property protection is copyrighted, and the ultimate execution as a Patent would be the property of the winning bidder.


Who will take these actions?

Allow a team of Students to design, create and test the parts required for the prospective engine.

Should be less than a semester's effort to machine the head, reprogram a standard ECU, test on a Dyno and prospectively install into a chassis.

Testing the chassis could be as simple as driving it while recording the actual performance or allowing a car manufacturer to use it's facilities to verify the design's performance.


Where will these actions be taken?

Why not at MIT?


How much will emissions be reduced or sequestered vs. business as usual levels?

The Math Model implies a 90% reduction in fuel consumption and combustion product.

The eleven year replacement cycle of a typical chassis could create a retrofit market, but I would suspect it to take 6 years to see a 50% reduction in emissions.


What are other key benefits?

Less expensive to produce than a current ICE: Fewer parts.

Greater torque production, The eight speed transmission is reduced to perhaps two speeds, lower production costs.


What are the proposal’s costs?

A 'short block', depending on application is required.  A 2.5 liter, L-5 block is quoted at $2,500.

Design/ CAD time would be 100-120 hours at $100/hr or $10,000 to $12,000 dollars.

Re programming and preliminary testing would be 40-60 hours or $4,000 to $6,000 dollars.

Preliminary expenses would approach $25,000 dollars.

If live chassis testing is required, a chassis earlier than 1973 has to be used as the EPA considers that vintage and older a 'vintage' and anything newer has to be already in compliance with EPA standards.

A Pick Up truck is most desirable as a broad array of test weight(s) could be used to test various performance envelopes.

In condition capable of showcasing the design, a chassis could be $15,000-$25,000. Ideally, two chassis would be prepared with one powered by the best of today's technology, with an identical chassis powered by my design for a side-by-side comparison.

A fair estimate of project completion allowing for contingencies would be $100,000 dollars.


Time line

This is not rocket science.

The engine could be running in 90 days with a 4 person team of diverse skills. Fully tested and offered for sale might take a year.

Given the eleven year 'life cycle' of today's cars, I would anticipate 15-20% replacement in 5 years and 50% replacement of engines by 2030.

Bear in mind that this design is 'scalable' to any chassis from motorcycles and UltraLight Aircraft to Class 'A' over the road trucks and 12-42 seat passenger aircraft.


Related proposals

ANY of them that require a chassis to have it's own power source.


References

Monograph:

An Alternative: The Internal Steam Engine©

For the last century engines have been internal combustion, squeezing the air to a high density and either mixing the fuel before it was compressed and igniting the mixture or as a diesel, injecting the fuel and allowing the high pressure and temperature to ignite and in both cases, creating combustion and a pressure to drive a piston down.

An examination of the typical Four Stroke engine indicates only 25% efficiency if the engine were ‘perfect’ in every other regard because only 1 in 4 strokes of the piston is used to make power.

When considering that single power stroke, only half of that can be used to develop Torque because at the top and the bottom of the stroke, the crankshaft is moving more sideways than down, so the efficiency is now 12 ½% efficient.

The real culprit is in how we use the power, the engine speed has to vary from idle to ‘full power’, (actually high power but low efficiency) so while the combustion has a fixed period time to burn completely, the piston is nearly always going too fast or too slow to allow the combustion to be either complete or efficient.

The net result is that the actual ‘perfect’ efficiency is about 6.5%, so a gallon of fuel that has 2776 horsepower only delivers 180 horsepower, so instead of 185 miles to a gallon on a fuel like gasoline, the average car gets 12.5 miles to the gallon. Even if they mount this into a chassis with an electric motor and a pile of batteries, the efficiency perhaps doubles because the engine can be run at a single, most efficient RPM… fuel economy is NOT an indication of efficiency, because you can lower the demand by making the chassis lighter, but the efficiency stays the same.

Even worse is that the batteries have a larger ‘carbon footprint’ than the least efficient engine for production and disposal. The objective should be to ‘free the flame’, or allow the consumption of fuel at peak efficiency, and use more power strokes of longer duration.

What I propose is to heat the bores to a constant temperature greater than 400* degrees, and inject water into the bores creating steam pressure to drive the piston. This allows the heat to be on demand, so the fuel consumption is only from the heat used, with power developed from the stored thermal mass of the head and the meter quantity of water to make the power demanded every time a piston is available to power, which would be would be every stroke.

In practice, water is injected into the heated bore(s) to produce steam. The steam pressure is dependent on the quantity of water introduced into the heated bores; (see steam tables). This would quadruple the number of power strokes and could triple the applied pressure bringing efficiencies into the 70th percentile.

This implies that a 4,500 pound vehicle could get 145 miles to the gallon and reduce combustion gases, (pollution) by 90%.

©case number: 1-89587058